Linus Torvalds has announced the second release candidate (RC2) of Linux Kernel 6.13 on December 8, 2024. The Kernel 6.13-rc2 brings a number of updates, fixes, and cleanups following the initial RC1.
Table of Contents
Key Highlights of Linux Kernel 6.13 RC2
1. Driver Updates Dominate
Linus Torvalds notes that this release features an unusual diffstat, with over 80% of changes concentrated in driver-related updates.
This includes both enhancements and minor fixes, many of which are one-liners resulting from automated cleanup scripts.
In the Linux Kernel 6.13-rc2 announcement, Linus wrote:
The diffstat looks a bit unusual with 80%+ drivers, and a lot of it
one-liners, but that's actually just because of a couple of automated
scripts that got run after -rc1 for some cleanups. Nothing
particularly interesting, but it makes for a lot of noise in the diff.
Other Significant updates include:
- SPI: Support for Intel Panther Lake SPI controllers.
- GPU Drivers: Fixes for AMDGPU resume handling, workload settings, and display-related issues.
- Networking: Enhancements for Mellanox mlx5 drivers, VLAN pruning fixes, and updates for PHY timestamp extraction.
- Watchdog: Additional support for ExynosAutoV920, Airoha EN7851, and improvements for Mediatek systems.
2. Architectural Improvements
- ARM64: Refinements for memory tagging extensions (MTE) and ASID masking logic.
- LoongArch: Improvements in handling IRQ and huge page table entries.
- x86: Updates to fix PKRU value restoration and add support for Lunar Lake CPUs.
3. Networking and BPF Updates
Several fixes for network-related components, including:
- Addressing memory leaks in TCP and NVMe over RDMA.
- Improvements in ethtool functionality and support for new Mellanox hardware features.
- Enhanced BPF functionalities, including LPM trie updates and new test cases.
4. Filesystem and Memory Management
- Btrfs: Fixes for transaction deadlocks and cross-referencing nowait writes.
- XFS: Addressing inode limit issues and delalloc/quota timer inconsistencies.
- General Memory Management: Improved handling of mmap hints and fixes for filemap and NUMA-related errors.
5. Watchdog and Power Management
The release includes updates to:
- Watchdog timer implementations
- Power domain management
- Platform-specific power management routines
Minor but Noteworthy Fixes
A significant number of changes were made to ensure code consistency and resolve subtle bugs:
- ALSA: Audio driver adjustments for Realtek devices and RME Digiface USB.
- Documentation: Corrections in ABI references and module descriptions.
- General Maintenance: Cleanup of warnings, typos, and outdated or redundant code.
Try Linux Kernel 6.13 RC2
Linus Torvalds encourages the community to continue testing this release candidate, with an eye toward stabilizing the kernel before the holiday season.
The users can download kernel 6.13-rc2 from the Kernel.org website or the Linus Torvalds's git tree.
Based on the typical Linux kernel release cycle, we can expect the final version of Kernel 6.13 in mid-to-late January 2025.
